She awoke suddenly to a pair of hands gripping desperately onto her shoulders. The girl gasped and lunged forward, startled by whoever was violently rattling her, being met with a pair of wide and frightened eyes that frantically searched her face. She squinted, taking in whoever this person was that jarred her awake.

It was a young man flooded with a concerned look which was obscured beneath his black, squared off glasses. His white button up and black tie were muddled with grime; sweat slipped down his face, warm droplets falling off the tip of his nose with every shuddered breath he exhaled. A few fell and splattered across her forehead, snapping her into awareness of the unexpected stranger.

"Hey," he said to her, his voice somewhat squeaky with nervousness. "You're awake-"

"Who the fuck are you?" The girl yelped and scrambled to her feet, slapping off his dirty hands before standing a little ways back. He put his arms in the air as if surrendering, also retreating a couple of steps.

"I- I'm Dwight. I don't know what's going on-" His voice cracked as tears began pricking his eyes, arms swinging down defeatedly. He took his glasses off, quickly rubbing at the wetness behind them. "I don't know where we are..."

At last, she looked around. It was dark outside with a bright and foreboding full moon settled in the sky above, yet she could barely make out the wilderness that engulfed them. The shadows crept up so close that it was hard to see much beyond the first layer of trees- at which time the girl noticed the campfire beside herself and Dwight. It crackled and danced ablaze, helping to give somewhat of a comforting glow against the pitch black of the night.

There was this... creepy energy emanating from the forest- something that she couldn't quite explain in those few seconds of trying to assess what her current situation was. There were far more pressing matters at hand than to stand there acting like a frightened child in a dark room.

A slight breeze passed through helping to remind her of the last thing she doing, which was taking a typical mentally relieving run through the woods before she somehow... passed out? How did she make it to this campsite? And who the Hell was this Dwight guy?

Still sniffling and struggling to compose himself, Dwight mustered up a few enlightening words.

"What's your name?" He asked her. There was a pause as she looked around at the darkness again, taking it all in. Her eyes never left the wall of black as she spoke with him, still not trusting the gut feeling she was getting from it's eeriness.

"Meg." Is all she replied before taking a step toward his hunched figure, pointing in his face as she finally looked toward him. "I don't understand, how did I end up here? Did you bring me to this place?"

Dwight stared innocently at Meg as her accusatory tone pierced through him. Again, he put his hands up, guarding his good will.

"No! I swear, I have no idea- I don't even know how I got here!" He replied shakily, genuinely sounding scared and confused.

They were suddenly interrupted by a foreign voice, causing the pair to sharply turn their heads across the campfire.

"H- hello?" Came a soft, confused tone. Meg's heart skipped a beat, discovering that a woman had just appeared from thin air and was now lying in the dirt beside the fire, warily peering up at them with a face full of fright. Meg's brows were furrowed as she looked at Dwight momentarily, making sure he was seeing the stranger too. As soon as their eyes met, he began to shake his head with a growing anxiety that confirmed it wasn't just some wild hallucination.

He carded a hand through his hair, launching into a paranoid pace back and forth. "What the fuck is going on?!"

Meg put her hands out. "Just calm down for a moment-"

"Who are you?" Asked the new girl as she worriedly stood up from the forest floor. "Where am I?"

"We are all trying to figure that out!" Shouted Dwight, who was now panicking by the edge of the darkness, hands gripping his knee caps tightly.

Taking a deep breath, Meg struggled to maintain her composure herself given that their situation up until that point felt like a fever dream. But now it was starting to become real. She held her hands tightly clutched by her chest, feeling the tips of her fingers quiver. She wanted to stay calm and vigilante but it was becoming increasingly harder to, considering every bizarre thing she'd just witnessed in the past couple minutes.

"What's your name?" She asked the stranger through a trembling breath.

"Claudette- I- who are you both?"

"I'm Meg and this is Dwight..." Another deep inhale. It only served to make her feel worse as she sucked in a bunch of smoke from the fire, forcing a raspy cough through her. She darted down to a knee to escape it before staring into the dirt like a zombie, lost in the various strains that had been thrown onto the girl. Her mind was moving so slow yet so fast it felt like she was having an internal malfunction from all the anxiety and suddenness of the predicament.

This Claudette person seemed to be so shocked that she couldn't make up any words, choosing to just stand by staring at Dwight who continued have a great deal of trouble in processing everything. Meg could hardly do much more, a million questions racing through her mind while being offered no plausible answer of any kind. All she could ask herself was how and why she was here with these random people, never being led to any logical conclusion no matter how much she fought for one.

It felt as though hours passed before someone got the courage to try and get to the bottom of their debacle. It was Claudette who cleared her throat and peered up at them, flames reflecting off of her glasses.

"We should go find help. We can't be far from-"

"-No!" Dwight stopped her and any of her possible solutions. "This is not... normal."

Both the girls looked at him. He was right. Obviously, something was amiss. A person quite literally appeared out of nowhere in front of Meg and she still was having trouble processing what this all was or meant for their situation.

"We don't know what's out there, we- we don't know anything!"

Meg's heart sank. There had been a feeling- an awful feeling slowly growing within the pit of her stomach the more time they spent by the fire trying to figure everything out. A part of her hoped that the reason for all of this could simply be her getting kidnapped by the nervous wreck of a man that was Dwight, yet she had a nagging feeling that the truth was far stranger. She couldn't comprehend whether this was her heightened fear or some sort of natural instinct.

"Do you hear that?" Claudette asked before swiftly putting her finger out, gesturing for them to be quiet and listen. Meg honed in on whatever it was that she heard, identifying some rustling leaves in the distance. It started off soft then increasingly became louder and louder until it turned into the thunderous sound of footsteps charging right at their campfire.

Dwight barely could produce a yelp through his shock as he ran to Meg's side, putting his arm out in front of her. Claudette froze in front of the pair and could only stare into the darkness as the footfalls came nearer and nearer until...!

BOOM!

A slim and nimble figure pounced out from the shadows, landing with a hard thud on the forest floor. All of the strangers around the campfire cried out until they collectively noticed it was no monster who had joined them, instead just another random individual.

He stood up straight immediately, panting and looking seriously at all of them. "Do not go into the woods."

"What's out there?" Dwight asked him, never minding that they had no clue who this person was. The newcomer shook his head.

"I don't know. And I don't want to find out..." He paused, a look of realization coming across his face. "Who are all of you?"

Dwight sighed, gesturing around at the trio. "Dwight, Meg and Claudette. You?"

"I'm Jake."

For the first time, Meg felt relief that she was not in this alone.